There has been provided an invention disclosed in JP,2002-369018,A as a related art color correction apparatus. The color correction apparatus according to the disclosed invention acquires a color-corrected target color by using a color difference minimum method based on both the color characteristics of a calibrated basic color image device and the color characteristics of another reference color image device having color characteristics different from those of the basic color image device, computes a color correction parameter from the target color and an input color applied to the reference color image device, and furnishes this color correction parameter to the reference color image device. In general, when color adjustment is performed on an image signal indicating a certain chromaticity range, the color-adjusted image signal may indicate a chromaticity range which is not contained in a color reproduction region reproducible by the color image display apparatus. However, the color correction apparatus in accordance with the above-mentioned invention does not take into consideration a process of handling such a chromaticity range which is not contained in a color reproduction region produced through color adjustment.
There has been provided an invention disclosed in JP,11-341296,A as another related art color correction apparatus. When outputting, as a printed sheet of paper, an image displayed on a monitor or the like which is an input device to a printer which is an output device, the other color correction apparatus in accordance with the present invention processes the image according to a look-up table (referred to as a LUT from here on) by using a control unit so that the image is expressed on a sheet of paper using the color gamut of the printer. In other words, when the color reproduction region for the input device differs from the color reproduction region for the output device, the other color correction apparatus performs color gamut conversion on the chromaticity range of an input image signal so that it is headed for a convergence point within the color reproduction region for the output device. In this color gamut conversion, the other color correction apparatus performs three dimension compression processing on the color gamut of the input device. When performing three dimension color gamut conversion on the value, saturation, and hue of an input image signal, the other color correction apparatus uses a three dimension LUT. Although the use of the three dimension LUT reduces the operation speed of the other color correction apparatus, the application of the other color correction apparatus to still pictures presents no problem. However, the application of the other color correction apparatus to moving images has harmful effects.
A problem with the related art color correction apparatus constructed as mentioned above, and the related art color correction methods implemented as mentioned above is that when color adjustment is performed on an input image signal, either of the hue, value, and saturation of the signal unavoidably changes with the color adjustment, the color adjustment cannot be performed appropriately since the chromaticity range which is no longer contained in the color reproduction region through the color adjustment is not taken into consideration, and, especially, a chromaticity range having a high saturation cannot be adjusted finely. A further problem is that when a three dimension LUT is used for color gamut compression processing which is carried out when correcting the hue, value, and saturation of the input image signal, the processing speed decreases.
The present invention is made in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, and it is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a color correction apparatus and a color correction method capable of providing a color-corrected image having a high degree of color reproducibility by preventing any chromaticity range which is not contained in a color reproduction region reproducible by a color image display apparatus through color adjustment from being produced by performing color gamut compression processing based on the color reproduction characteristics of the color image display apparatus, and achieving improvements in the processing speed without having to use a three dimension LUT for the color gamut compression processing.